Worldview: Seoul Fashion Week’s New Boss Reveals Future Plans

🇰🇷 Seoul Fashion Week’s new boss recommits to B2B strategy. Held from Sep. 3 to 7 in the South Korean capital, the latest edition of the fashion industry showcase hosted a trade show featuring around 100 brands including those presenting runway shows such as Ulkin, Ajobyajo and Hannah Shin. Organised by the Seoul Metropolitan Government, which has directly managed the event since 2021, fashion week is now led by Ko Kyoung-in, the new director of the municipality’s beauty and fashion industry department. “This season we…invited a greater number of influential global buyers…to diversify overseas trading partners and provide growth opportunities for [our] fashion brands,” said Ko, adding that despite the B2C “boost” that event affiliations with Korean celebrities provide, Seoul Fashion Week “remains dedicated to its vision as a global fashion business platform” focused on B2B channels. [BoF Inbox]

🇯🇵 Tokyo Fashion Award announces new winners at Tokyo Fashion Week. The event, officially called Rakuten Fashion Week Tokyo since the Japanese e-commerce giant became title sponsor in 2019, took place between Sep. 2 and 7 in the capital, featuring established brands such as Kamiya, Mint Designs and Anrealage Homme as well as young designer hopefuls for the Tokyo Fashion Award. Winners of the award, now in its tenth year, were named as: Kengo Baba, the designer behind Kanemasa Phil; Shunta Sakai of Paratrait; Tatsuya Tamada of Tamme, Tokio Kimura of Tokio, Keisuke Nagami of Hatra, River Garam Jang and Nobuhiko Kohama of Riv Nobuhiko, Aki Murakami of Tan and Satoru Sasaki. [BoF Inbox]

🇨🇳 Gucci-owner Kering slumps to 2017 low on China demand fears. The company, one of the worst-hit stocks in the recent luxury-sector selloff, fell as much as 4.3 percent on Monday, the most in about seven weeks, as analysts at Barclays Plc cut their recommendation on the stock to underweight from ‘equalweight.’ The latest decline came even as peers like LVMH and Hermès saw modest rebounds from last week’s rout, which was spurred by worries over demand, largely stemming from Asia. [BoF]

🇦🇪 Dubai Fashion Week launches new buyer programme. The latest season of the event, held between Sep. 1 to 7 in the United Arab Emirates’s fashion hub, featured several brands from beyond the event’s immediate sphere of influence. In addition to names from the Middle East and North Africa region like Dima Ayad and Amjad Khalil, designers from India, Indonesia and Malaysia took to the runway. Khadija Al Bastaki, senior vice president of event organiser Dubai Design District (D3), said the event was “pushing the envelope further with this latest edition that includes a new buyer’s platform, an expanded venue, more events and an extended schedule of designers.” [BoF Inbox]

🇨🇳 LVMH-owned Tiffany to downsize China flagship as spending dives. The jeweller, which opened a two-floor store in Shanghai’s Hong Kong Plaza in a high-profile ceremony in late 2019, has decided to give up about half of its square footage of the space, sources told Bloomberg. Tiffany’s pullback from China’s finance hub highlights the increasingly challenging business environment that global luxury giants have to navigate during an economic slowdown. [BoF]

🇧🇩 Bangladesh’s garment industry sees a new spate of unrest. In what is believed to be the first significant labour action in the sector since the country’s new interim government took office last month, wage protesters have forced the closure of 130 garment factories in the industrial areas of Gazipur and Narayanganj, according to a report by local news site BenarNews. [Yahoo Finance]

🇮🇳 India’s knitwear hub secures $54.5 million in orders from Bangladesh. In the two-week period before Sep. 5, the knitwear sector in Tiruppur gained export orders worth 450 crore rupees in the wake of the recent political unrest in Bangladesh, said KM Subramanian, president of Tiruppur Exporters’ Association, citing orders from global brands like Kik from Germany, Zeeman from Netherlands and Pepco of Poland. [Economic Times]

🇨🇳 Xinjiang orders municipalities to support sanctioned businesses. China’s Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region has told local governments in the territory to provide stronger support to those hit by United States’ Uygur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which took effect in June 2022, targeting entities responsible for “forced labour” in the region, focused on producers of cotton, tomatoes and other goods. [China Daily]

🇭🇺 Budapest Central European Fashion Week attracts 5000 visitors. The Hungarian Fashion & Design Agency (HFDA) organised the industry event from Aug. 26 to Sep. 1, showcasing 60 brands from Hungary and across the wider Central and Eastern Europe region. Zsofia Jakab of the HFDA said, “regional brands debuted in record numbers, and long-term agreements with the Slovak Fashion Council, the Ljubljana Fashion Week, Belgrade Fashion Week, and the Ukrainian Fashion Week also contributed to this success. [BoF Inbox]

🇿🇦 Shein’s pop-up store ruffles South African retail sector. The China-founded, ultra-fast fashion e-tailer has divided opinion with its first physical pop-up store in South Africa that lured bargain-hunters and spurred a tax change after rivals claimed unfair competition. Local critics of the company say the change will help achieve a level playing field, but they also warned that the local industry needs to sharpen its game. [BoF]

🇮🇳 H&M collaborates with Indian designer Anamika Khanna. The Swedish fast fashion brand has partnered with the designer for an exclusive collection that will be available in 20 of H&M’s 64 stores across 29 Indian cities and at overseas stores in markets like the United Kingdom, South Africa, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam and Malaysia. [Economic Times]

🇱🇰 Sri Lanka’s garment exports dip slightly in January-July period. The country’s garment exports totalled $2,612.6 million in the first seven months of 2024, a decline of 0.7 percent from the previous year. Textile exports fell by 11.7 percent, while exports of other made-up textile articles increased by 7.5 percent. [Fibre2Fashion]

🇨🇳 US safety body calls for investigation into China-founded Shein, Temu. The US Consumer Products Safety Commissioners Peter Feldman and Douglas Dziak have called for an investigation into the ultra-fast fashion e-tailers over safety concerns related to “deadly baby and toddler products” said to be sold on their platforms. [BoF]

🇮🇳 Indian government to launch standardised clothing size initiative. The government’s aim with its soon-to-be revealed ‘IndiaSize’ initiative is to establish standardised measurements to better suit a representative range of Indian body types, instead of relying on US and UK size standards which can create fitting issues for consumers, according to Union Textiles Minister Giriraj Singh. [Economic Times]

🇪🇬 Egyptian clothing exports rise 20% in January-July period. The country’s clothing exports reached $1.55 billion in the first seven months of 2024. Exports were up 29 percent during the period to European countries, up 12 percent to the US, up 31 percent to other Arab countries and up 203 percent to non-Arab African countries. [Fibre2Fashion]

🇨🇳 China’s Chow Tai Fook hires Gabriela Ferreira to lead global push. The Hong Kong-based jewellery giant has appointed Ferreira, who previously served as general manager for Southeast Asia and Oceania at Loewe, to be general manager, international, in charge of Chow Tai Fook’s further expansion into Southeast Asia and other markets. [BoF]

🇹🇼 Tatler Asia appoints Sophia Liao as managing director of Tatler Taiwan. The publisher of local editions of the high-society fashion and lifestyle glossy across the region has hired the media veteran who for over two decades has occupied several high-profile executive roles including president of Condé Nast China and managing director of Condé Nast Taiwan. [BoF Inbox]

🇨🇳 Jimmy Choo taps Chinese actor Wang Yibo as brand ambassador. The London-based luxury brand has secured a deal with the actor, singer and professional road motorcycle racer to endorse its products. Wang already serves as ambassador for brands including Chanel, Loewe, Lacoste and Shu Uemura. [BoF Inbox]